Donald Rumsfeld's hungry, depleted military

U.S. Marines go hungry. Jeezus H. Christ. Never mind the lack of body armor, the stop-loss efforts, these service members cannot even get three square meals a day in Dear Leader’s military. The folks risking their lives for Dear Leader over there are begging for food.

So Nick Andoscia went to Iraq. And hunger soon followed.

“I got a letter,” says Karen. “And he had called me before that. He said, ‘Send lots of tuna.’ “

Nick told his mother that he and the men in his unit were all about 10 pounds lighter in their first few weeks in Iraq. They were pulling 22-hour patrol shifts. They were getting two meals a day and they were not meals to remember.

“He told me the two meals just weren’t cutting it. He said the Iraqi food was usually better. They were going to the Iraqis and basically saying, ‘feed me.’ “

Karen started packing in that wartime tradition as old as mothers and sons. She packed a lot of the packaged tuna, not the canned.

…The last thing he should have to worry about is an empty stomach. The last thing he should have to do is approach Iraqis and ask for food.

Why does Rummy still have a job? If this was a Dem Admin’s Sec Def, his ass would have been scorched by the Right and he would have been out on his ass long ago. Oh wait, we wouldn’t be in this flipping war, would we?

The Army Reserve, taxed by recruiting shortfalls and war-zone duty, has adopted a policy barring officers from leaving the service if their field is undermanned or they have not been deployed to Iraq, to Afghanistan or for homeland defense missions.

The reserve has used the unpublicized policy, first adopted in 2004 and strengthened in a May 2005 memo signed by Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, its commander, to disapprove the resignations of at least 400 reserve officers, according to Army figures.

…”This is a dangerous precedent for the future of all officers. They are saying officer service is permanent,” said Capt. Bradley Schwan, who served six years on active duty before joining the Army Reserve. He is suing Defense Department leaders to be allowed to resign, after being turned down twice. He is awaiting a ruling on a government motion to dismiss his case by a judge in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

…But Defense Department lawyers say that the federal law, including its use of the phrase “indefinite term,” clearly gives the administration the authority to disapprove officer resignations. “The term ‘indefinite’ means what it says,” they said in a filing in the Schwan case. “An indefinite term has no specific length, but is rather unlimited.”

And remember, the recruiters are out there ready to sign up 45-year olds, people with autism, and those with backgrounds of “serious criminal misconduct” (that includes aggravated assault, robbery, vehicular manslaughter, receiving stolen property and making terrorist threats) in their desperation for warm bodies.